


A Hawk's Patience (HINT: It's Running Low)

by Asteriskiel



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Author Loves Clint Barton, BAMF Phil Coulson, Be Nice to Clint Barton, Canon Disabled Character, Clint Barton Gets a Hug, Clint Barton Has Issues, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Could Be Canon, Deaf Clint Barton, Depressed Clint Barton, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insecure Clint Barton, Intersectional Feminist!Phil Coulson, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Nesting Clint Barton, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Phil Coulson Does Not Believe In Macho Masculinity, Phil Coulson Has the Patience of a Saint, Protective Phil Coulson, Thor Odinson Calling Phil Coulson "Son of Coul", Tony Stark Is Not Helping, mentions of Toxic Masculinity, the author does not know how to tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 16:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8497480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asteriskiel/pseuds/Asteriskiel
Summary: "I don´t miss.Missing is not an option.Amazing means one hundred per cent bull´s eye.I do not miss.Clint had long since overcome the urge to rock himself in situations like these, but the anxiety hadn´t gotten any more sufferable.Sometimes he wanted somebody. For somebody to be there. For somebody to take away the pain, by soothing or shooting him he did not know. Perhaps he wouldn´t have minded either way. It was hard to think when his head got like this."





	1. Amazing Means Me, Me Means Amazing, I Am Amazing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \-- only seconds later the only thing left was pain. The world as he knew it to be shifted in its axis, depriving him off balance. He fell on the ground and tried to find something to hold on to. Like he had been doing for most of his life. --

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/149745147@N03/33251865284/in/datetaken/)

 

 _I do not miss_ , Clint chanted under his breath as he rolled on yet another rooftop. It sounded pathetic even to his own, though very deaf, ears.

_I do not miss, I am better than that. I must be._

Now, our duty as the observers is to keep in mind that it is not often that the Amazing Hawkeye disappoints on a professional level. When he indeed does, he just has to do it in a situation as unsuitable as possible. He is giving everything for the show, the audience, even in moments like this. Maybe it was the remainders of a circus artist in him.

He could hear the mocking voices in his head better than his own damned thoughts. "Congratulations Agent Barton, we would like to offer you a medal of dishonor for your baffling incompetency." Yeah, no thank you, Sir.

See, Clint just couldn’t have his once-in-a-decade fuck-up while practicing at the range where he could stare at the stray arrow like it had personally offended him and retired to lick his wounds after deleting all security footage that would betray his feebleness for the world to see. No, he had to make it on the field, on an official Avengers mission. It wouldn’t be a true fuck-up if it wasn’t on live TV nation-wide, now would it.

Steve, the ever patient and merciful Steven Grant Rogers could have been killed. His friend who — almost literally — wore an aureole of saint-likeness, and who always shielded — very literally — the weak and fought injustice wherever he went. That kind of a blessing could've been killed because some Clinton Francis Barton had messed up at the wrong time, at the wrong place, in the wrong battle.

The world could have lost Captain America.

That was not acceptable at all.

It should have been something of a routine shot (well if there ever had been a single routine-resembling thing in his life). Clint had noticed the bullet that was expertly aimed to the back of Steve’s skull. As Hawkeye Clint was going to shoot his arrow right into the side of the bullet from his position in the stairway of the opposing building, making it hopefully deflect from its course before it hit home.

That had been the plan, what should've happened. Of course, absolutely nothing in Clint’s life ever went to plan and he had damn better to remember that.

So, he didn’t make the shot.

Instead, Clint found himself flying through the air and wondering why the fuck was it always him who got on the bad end of explosions on every goddamned battlefield the Avengers were called to. It was a miracle and sheer luck, though Clint believed in neither, that the fragments of the infrastructure of New Jersey that were flying around stopped the bullet before it hit its prey. Clint was positively sure that the universe just wasn’t ready to grant Rogers his peace yet. Pun intended.

The fact that Steve had not actually come to any harm through Clint’s failure did nothing to ease the archer’s guilt, and it wasn’t even like Clint could blame the conditions. Sure, he had shot in more ideal situations than mid-fly in the middle of exploding buildings, but it was nothing he hadn't been trained for. Nothing he hadn’t trained himself for since forever. He was an Avenger now and that brought a certain level of professionalism with it. That professionalism didn’t allow blaming the environment for your own bad job, no matter what it did to make it harder for you. Taking the responsibility for his own faults had been taught to him the hard way ever since childhood. People only cared about getting things done, they didn’t want to listen to excuses or explanations. Results were the only thing that mattered, and they mattered without a spending limit on the price.

The blast had just been slightly too close, slightly too loud, and perhaps, slightly too frightening. Not that he would ever admit to it. Clint Barton wasn’t shaken by a bit of shock waves and a few loud noises.

The mission was the most important. He should've acted like it. No justifications for not having.

_Always mind the mission, always mind the Avengers. Do not get distracted._

God, he couldn't possibly look them in the eyes ever again. He was appalling.

Clint had no doubts that they would opt for Captain America’s side instead of Clint’s if Captain wanted to kick him out of the team, perhaps permanently. Who wouldn't prefer Steve?

Clint was just grateful that he had placed his earpiece on the windowsill where it was within hearing range if he upped the volume to maximum, but it wouldn’t chafe uncomfortably against his hearing aids. Stark had been trying to find a way to make the hearing aids double as his earpiece for mission-type situations but had been making the last changes when the call to assemble came and Clint was forced to take an old pair with him. Taking the communicational device out at any point of the mission was against his standing orders, but those had never stopped him. He wouldn’t have gotten where he was in the S.H.I.E.L.D hierarchy if he had followed every command in his life. At least he didn’t have to listen to Agent Coulson being disappointed in him.

 _Should I resign?_ Captain _wouldn't have to do the paperwork for the official discharge, dishonorable or not._

He knew what they would say as soon as the battle was over. "Clint, you are an absolutely unnecessary piece of crap who doesn’t deserve to be on this team. Please pack your stuff and leave ASAP."

_Bad people don't get to cry on other people's shoulders, I know that, so why do I still feel like that would be the best thing right about now. Bad people don’t get good things. They have to be alone. They have to be punished._

Clint seriously considered going underground right then and there, until the Avengers would cool off enough to let him pick up his things from the Tower.

The thought of destroying his hearing aids, leaving himself as vulnerable as he had been before Coulson had given him his S.H.I.E.L.D recruitment speech, crossed his mind. He ached for sound and voice like a starving man craved nutrition but didn’t believe for a second that he would get to keep the aids in case of being permanently discharged from service. Stark had made them personally, spending a lot of time tweaking and bettering the pieces to make them as durable and natural to wear as possible. It hurt to think that maybe the man would now regret the effort he had put into them.

_They'll all ridicule you now. They’ll shame you._

He would just have to suffer through whatever anger was directed towards him, take his sizable share of the blame. Served him right.

Clint’s brain barely registered his course through the air being cut short and rolling painfully on his side before crashing in to a water tower. Really, what was it with the New York City and the water towers on every damn roof? It was like a curse.

He stood as quickly as possible, on instinct, and scanned the situation. There were five enemy agents running towards Steve with rifles ready to shoot. Seeing that the nearest other Avenger – Black Widow – was occupied by fighting four of her own in close combat he decided to protect Steve. Wanting to make up for his shortcoming played no part in his decision. Or the fact that the Widow could in all likelihood take on at least one more.

Clint’s mission brain snapped into action again, he would just keep shooting as many of the enemy soldiers as he could; he would keep shooting one hundred and then some per cent after that fail. Afterwards, he would submit his fate to the hands of his team mates, ex-team mates. He supposed he'd have to confess his sin in debriefing to Agent Coulson, that was, if the man had not seen it by himself. He was not looking forward to finding out.

He'd let them punch him and yell at him and completely destroy him like he knew they had the power to do. Hell, it would be all too easy for them. Clint was easy to hurt in his own self-hate once you got past his walls. Not to even mention that they were all superheroes who could snap his neck in three seconds flat from across the room. (Except Black Widow, his Tasha, who could probably succeed under two and make it hurt five times more for the remaining seconds of his life.)

They were competent, picture perfect creatures, solely made to protect and be of use to the world. Very unlike Clint who had been an accident in the first place and unwanted everywhere life threw him. He doubted that even the Avengers had been asked if they wanted a man like Clint in their work environment, let alone to team with him, day-to-day. Even live with him.

Of course, Clint knew what went going on behind closed doors.

He knew about the times when the all-mighty Avengers crumbled on their bedroom floors, carefully built images shattering after yet another darkness filled by night terrors and screams of people from their past. They had all hurt the people they loved the most. They all had their own ghosts.

For one, it was a green monster finally overpowering its carrier. Thor had his own cosmic problems, approaching Ragnarök not being the smallest of them. The man inside of the infamous suit, the man made of red nitinol? He had almost as much daddy issues as Clint, half the guilt, and twice the abandonment issues. Tasha was never scared of anything, but he had seen her standing on any which bridge, a bottle of Талка in her other hand, the other one barely holding on to the rail. For the man in a suit as blue as America’s police force was now-a-days? It was a dark-haired man, an echo from an era in which men were men, except for those who weren’t (but it didn’t matter because those two had never stood a real chance anyway, not in the midst of a war).

Clint only knew because he was awake on those nights too, hiding in a vent or another. He never wandered into another Avenger's personal rooms except to shorten his path from place A to place B (Tasha was an exception, and Phil whom everyone considered one of them), but he could only too well hear the barely suppressed groans of agitation and sometimes fear. Not one of them was free of the monsters under their beds or inside their heads.

In his opinion, those nights only substantiated their strength.

”Hawkeye! Watch out!” the shout was useless because Clint was effectively deaf at the moment from the ringing in his ears, and only seconds later the only thing left was pain. The world as he knew it to be shifted in its axis, depriving him off balance. He fell on the ground and tried to find something to hold on to. Like had been doing for most of his life.

Someone ran to him, he didn’t even know if it was an enemy or a friend, couldn’t turn his head to look. They helped him up though, so it must’ve been another Avenger or a fellow agent from S.H.I.E.L.D and soon he could smell Natasha’s hair even under the layers of cement.

He couldn’t do anything but think and even that was getting increasingly difficult. Fog covered his mind, settling him into a haze where nothing hurt but everything screamed wrongness at him.

_No. No. No. Leave me. It’s alright. I’m dumb, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. Breathe. Don’t go. Leave me here._


	2. Will You Still Fight Me When I'm No Longer Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \-- Coulson was wearing his expression number 001122-CLINT, the one that made shit hurt less and Clint feel like the world didn't despise him as much as it had let on. --

_Dead people don’t feel hurt, so why does my head feel like I’ve been tortured by the greenest lot of HYDRA’s torture department?_

 

It apparently took a while, but when Clint woke up he knew someone had put his aids back in, because the first thing his brain registered was shouting.

 

”I am not interested in anything you have to say, unless it is the name of the person who let this happen,” so yeah, okay, good. Phil was here.

 

”Calm yourself, son of Coul. You might awaken him.”

 

”Let it go Thor, Agent Agent here, he’s just concerned for his boyfriend,” and if that wasn’t one mister Stark speaking.

 

“Tony, company manners please.”

 

Senior Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD, level eight, did not have anything nice to say after that, so he kept his mouth shut. Just like his mama had taught him.

Contrary to popular belief Clint didn’t frequent the medical nearly as often as the others did. He was positively sure the entire staff of the medical bay had cheered their asses off when they had seen him being carried to the hospital wing in the Avengers Tower. And unconscious, unable to shoot anyone who tried to touch him without Phil by his side? It was their lucky day!

 

Going to a doctor’s appointment had been such an odd concept at first when he joined the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, that he had fought Phil relentlessly on the issue. The medical staff in SHIELD headquarters were understandably quite fed up with him by then. Which was why it was the team’s responsibility to bribe him into going to his semi-annual check-ups and after every major scrap he got in the field. Using his share of health care had never even passed Clint’s mind before his recruitment, and he remembered how taken aback he had been by the very suggestion.

 

These days there was no place for that. Apparently, it was written in some shit regulations that check-ups were necessary, even if the patient refused their cooperation constantly. The only pro-side was that if he went with minimal sulking, Coulson would come with him.

 

Shaken from his thoughts by the bickering between Tony and Steve reaching a whole new level of pettiness Clint really begged any god out there who wasn’t Thor or — heavens forbid — Loki, so that he wouldn’t have to open his eyes and show any life signs. Not that he was stupid, (which, okay he self-admittedly was very much stupid but that wasn’t the point) but even he was not-dumb enough to realize that if Thor was in the room, then so were all the Avengers. That in turn meant, that Natasha was too, and she could call on his bluff on about .01 seconds, which would be seriously embarrassing to everyone present.

 

Fuck Natasha Romanova. Seriously. Fuck her and her paranormal observation skills.

 

"Hey, stop that and actually give Barton here some rest," ah, Phil, always the savior. He sounded tired. Why was he so tired?

 

"He isn’t sleeping anymore, Coulson." Evidently, a Black Widow’s pity only went so far, and it seemed his time of mercy was used up for the time being. He didn’t want the conversation, couldn’t have it now. He would have to leave them behind, or watch them distance themselves from him. Neither option sounded appealing.

 

"Clint!"

 

"Fuck you Romanoff," Clint interjected. Anxiety was twisting up inside him, gathering into an icy mess of guilt and stress. The knot was pressing on his chest, making it already difficult to breathe.

 

"Sure. Six ways from Sunday okay with you?" she deadpanned as Agent Coulson and the other Avengers were trying to speak on top of each other, some more calm than others.

 

"Agent Barton, I must inform you as your handler that there will be disciplinary actions against you for failing to obey your standing orders. Again."

 

"Seriously birdie let’s get the fuck out of here and go hold a fucking party for this!”

 

"Tony! Don’t be so crude."

 

"I mean, let us take our leave and hold a small, closed celebration in honor of recent developments in your health and level of consciousness. ’S that better, Capsicle?”

 

”Surprisingly fancy of you to say,” Clint grunted, Tony’s last line being the only comment he could actually hear over the other people.

 

”I can shove some fancy shit up your Iowan trashy motherfucker ass but I won’t. I don’t have to, because unlike you I went to MIT and graduated class valedictorian.”

 

”Yeah rich kid, move on,” Clint snorted, even though he was the living stereotype of a Midwestern white trash man. Terribly insecure, alcohol problems, abusive or negligent family and more or less dumb. All hidden behind a façade of the strong macho-man. Yup, that was him.

 

”Ow. You hurt me deeply. Besides, you’re just envious of my great merits.”

 

”As if," another thing Clint would admit in a nanosecond was having unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as responding to threats with bad jokes and denial. Maybe it could be excused since he had not, in fact, ever acquired a GED. He had done a whole lot of tests at SHIELD that basically contributed to the same thing, but he had never sat a GED in an honest to God school.

 

"Don’t be so snappish to the other, both of you," it was Bruce’s first time talking during the conversation beside Clint’s hospital bed.

 

"You’ve had your fun, now get out of my medical before I call Fury," Clint’s doctor, and one of the only people who gave precisely zero fucks about the Avengers, appeared into the room out of nowhere and hushed the babbling team out while Stark was yelling that technically it was his medical not Fury’s because fuck technicalities and because he had paid for the rooms and equipment and also--.

 

It took Clint a second to realize no one had commented on his wayward shot.

 

It would hurt so much to never see them again.

 

A day later Clint was back at the Tower, up and about. Medical had wanted him to stay for two but Coulson had pulled the strings and got it shortened. Honestly, he was planning on using the most of his range privileges in the Stark-made shooting paradise before resigning. The other Avengers were doing their own things nearby.

 

"So, team, when’s the debrief?” The deal-breaker question. Clint had been dreading the moment he would have to ask but better sooner rather than later.

 

”We had it already,” Steve informed him, trying very obviously appear like having a debrief without one member was nothing unusual.

 

”What?” No, what, why? The debrief was always held right afterwards, but Clint would have guessed the meeting be withheld until he was back to this world. No offense to Thor.

 

”We had the briefing because we were about sure you wouldn’t want to participate,” Steve stated after exchanging looks with Natasha and Tony.

 

”Oh. Okay.”

 

 _What the fuck Steve?_    _Why would you?_

 

 _"_ Listen dude, we had it because you were mainly being drugged up on the good stuff as you say, so you wouldn’t have been in the state of mind to participate either way. There was nothing that magical about the debrief, it was just normal yapping," Tony reasoned.

 

And yeah that shouldn’t have hurt so much. Honestly, they had had his best interests in mind but it seemed like Clint got butthurt over anything. He knew that his anxiety was through the roof and over any nest he had ever been in, (which was saying something because fuck, Hong Kong hadn’t been a fun trip) but come on.

 

_Where does this leave me?_

 

”You have to go to talk to Agent Coulson though. Not for your perspective of the whole jambo but like, for some signatures of confirmation or shit. He’s been shifty to get the paperwork done for the last one.”

 

"Yeah, I will. Thanks.”

 

“By the way, why didn’t you react when I shouted the warning at you? Before you got knocked out.” Interesting, it sounded as though Tony felt a bit guilty himself.

 

“I didn’t have my aids in. I left them at my post and you know the level of hearing I have left, which is to say, next to no.”

 

“Next time lucky.”

 

At least neither of them had brought up the subject of his eventual excommunication from the team. Maybe they were waiting for him to get the hint and go without prompting? Sure, it could be debated whether that was realistic or not, but it is funny how anxiety makes one paranoid over the smallest things.

 

”Clinton Francis Barton!” Agent Coulson stood in all his five feet and eight inches of authority by the door, having just arrived from God knows where, and the archer suddenly felt like little kids probably feel when their parents address them by their full names.

 

Just when Clint had most wished for some alone time for himself to prepare his resignation papers. Paperwork was always a pain in the ass.

 

Fuck him, if Agent Coulson wanted to talk to him right that moment.

 

"Aww, man, not in front of my friends," he whined. If there ever was anything Clint Barton alias Hawkeye was good at besides hitting his target (well, that was arguable these days) it was getting a rise out of people when he felt cornered. Natasha had once, years ago, called him a text book case of an abuse victim and after googling what were the characteristics of an abuse victim Clint couldn’t help but agree silently.

 

"Barton," and yeah that was definitely an order.

 

”Yes, Sir?” Clint asked wearily, but not without snickers from Tony who was suddenly interested in something else entirely (while undoubtedly listening in).

 

For some unfathomable reason the team thought it was always very funny indeed when Clint actually paid some respect to his superiors. Not that it happened often enough to be a habit. He could play nice for Coulson and he usually did in private, but generally that wasn’t the case if someone other than Natasha was around to see and tell. This time he supposed leaving a nice last impression of him would be in order, he was retiring after all.

 

”What was that, out on the field, two days ago?”

 

Clint had been trained to withstand torture without as much as a blink of an eye but that sucked the air right out of his lungs.

 

_Get a fucking grip Barton, this is not the time to be having a god damn freak out!_

 

”Beg your pardon, Sir?” the archer felt sick. Was this Coulson’s payback because he hadn’t been properly chastised by the senior agent about missing the shot? Was this a punishment for his lousy behavior? Bringing the subject up in front of Steve, Tony and Tasha. Oh god,  _Tasha,_  she hated inefficiency almost as much as Coulson did, and Clint was relatively sure the man had legitimate OCD symptoms.

 

”You left your hearing aid at your nest, which resulted in you getting knocked out. You will face a disciplinary notice for that and thank me it isn’t revoking range access. In addition to disobeying, you were clearly distracted, or you’d have had better awareness of your surroundings."

 

"Thank you, Sir. And I wasn’t, Sir. Distracted."

 

"You got knocked out. We all know how often that happens. You get blown up, thrown off buildings and otherwise physically harmed on the daily, but you do not get knocked out."

 

"You’ve knocked me out more than once, Sir."

 

"Not. The. Point. Barton," Agent Coulson barked each word sovereignly.

 

"Well, I had a good reason to be, Sir,” like hell Clint was going to tell Coulson about it.

 

"There are no good reasons to be distracted on the field, Barton."

 

Now the big guns were out. Clint saw the others leave quietly, they must’ve realized that Clint was due a verbal thrashing from his handler. He knew better than to expect them to have really left. Well, maybe Steve had, but Tony was certainly outside the door and Natasha could be virtually anywhere within hearing range which, to tell the truth, for her was quite the range. Apparently, the Red Room required top-notch senses.

 

"Yes, Sir. Understood, Sir. Won’t happen again." Why couldn’t Coulson just drop the shit already and get out? "Permission to be dismissed, Sir?"

 

"Permission not granted. Tell me what had you so worked up, Barton," Coulson said in a voice that made Clint seriously consider taking his at-home BTE aids out and just ignoring his handler. An urge he didn’t often get with Coulson.

 

Clint had trusted exactly four people in his life.

 

He had trusted Barney.

 

He had trusted Sister Anysia in the orphanage he and Barney had been sent to. When she had died Clint learned the only Latin phrase the Catholic orphanage ever managed to teach him. Nomen est omen. Sister Anysia died by the hand of a man. A drunk man on the street was all it took to kill the only motherly figure a lot of the boys had ever had. When Clint had worked as a paid assassin he had tracked the man down and it turned out that the man’s name had been an omen too. (Clint had made sure of it.) He had killed Sebastian without a second thought.

 

He had trusted Trick Shot.

 

He trusted Coulson, as stupid as it was.

 

Clint trusted Coulson as much as he had trust left after getting burned three times too much.

 

Feeling perhaps more on edge than ever, Clint was barely controlling his voice "You have no right."

 

"I am your superior agent, not to mention still your handler, and the matter is about your ability to work. I do have the right. Now, speak to me Barton before I lose my temper." That would have been a sight for sore eyes but Clint didn’t want to go down that path. Not today of all days.

 

"I had one fucking job, okay?" Clint stated, his voice flat. He had somehow known that it would come to this and had still lived in denial. "I had one job. I didn’t deliver."

 

Clint didn’t understand religion, but he understood priests. It must have felt nice, listening a sinner confess. Except, this was no proper confessional and it suffered from a dearth of anonymity to soothe the shame.

 

Coulson was wearing his expression number 001122-CLINT, the one that made shit hurt less and Clint feel like the world didn’t despise him as much as it had let on all these years. "Tell me, Barton, what do you consider to be your job?"

 

"Aim my bow where you or the other Avengers tell me to and always shoot one hundred per cent perfect. You and the team come first, always. Third is SHIELD, in general. Don’t fuck up for once in my life, get shit done, practice," Clint recited smoothly.

 

Coulson looked bland as ever, the fucker. "Which one did you not follow through with two days ago?"

 

"I don’t want to talk about this."

 

"You have to, Barton" Agent Coulson was a person easy enough to trust. Being so wide-eyed had never done Clint any good and would get him killed one of these days. Still he continued to trust the only handler who had ever asked for his opinions. Must have told more about Clint than Coulson.

 

"Okay. I’ll tell you if you’ll quit bugging me for a second, but you won’t look at me the same afterwards."

 

"That’s for me to decide. Besides, do I ever look anything but bland? Because if so, I might need to go practice some serious facial feature schooling," Coulson grunted sitting down on the couch next to the range. Clint appreciated the effort, after all, Hawkeye was nothing but grateful to Agent Coulson.

 

"I failed all of them," as quiet as he could. Maybe, if he didn’t attract any attention at all, Coulson wouldn’t even hear him and he would try to hear but he wouldn’t because Clint refused to speak louder and maybe he’d go get his hearing checked immediately and maybe he would forget about Clint and then they didn’t have to talk at all and maybe Coulson wouldn’t be too pissed off at him and-

 

"So, you didn’t aim where I or the Avengers told you to? You missed? You didn’t put me, your team, or SHIELD first? You failed? You didn’t get things done? You didn’t practice?" It sounded even worse in Coulson’s intentionally gentle voice. The archer had no doubt of the sentiment’s sincerity but the fact that Coulson was letting it show was nice.

 

"Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir."

 

"Clint, from what I heard from your team mates, you shot down at least fifty enemy soldiers and protected Captain America. You didn’t fail."

 

Clint only heard Captain America and he wondered how Coulson lived with the fact that everybody knew that he had had a raging crush on America’s biggest hero.

 

It was a long time before Clint could answer and when he did his diffidence was more flowing than seeping through from his voice. "I didn’t protect Steve good enough. If it hadn’t been for the pieces that knocked the bullet he’d be dead. Sir."

 

Now Coulson looked like he was going to rip every last piece of truth from Clint. "Clint, that was the first shot you missed while in either SHIELD or the Avengers Initiative," Coulson said like he couldn’t understand something. For a man who always knew everything it was a nerving look.

 

"Yes, Sir. Can’t miss, Sir. I understand. Won’t happen again."

 

Coulson assumed the 001122-CLINT look again. "What do you mean by saying that you can’t miss?"

 

Okay fine, if Coulson got some kind of pleasure from hearing Clint say it himself then he damn well was going to. "I am not allowed missing, Sir."

 

"And what does that mean." Coulson looked increasingly like he was trying to put together a bigger picture, something self-explanatory once he got it, but in the dark for most people. It was one of his traits that Clint appreciated in a man.

 

"I mean what I say, I can’t miss. I’m on a team with enhanced super-humans, a Black Widow, and a god. They have their science, their arc reactors, their skills. Not missing is the only thing that makes me special. And if I’m not special then none of this is worth it. I gave up a lot for this life and did a lot of things I’m not proud of. But I wanted to the big league and I got to live up to that. If I miss, it means that I’m just another dude with a bow. It means I’ve been fooling myself, you, and the whole of SHIELD this whole time. And that’s why missing a shot is worse than a lot of things I could have messed up."

 

It was dead silent. Clint hated that he had put the look of utter frustration on Coulson’s features.

 

"You got knocked out by an enemy soldier because you missed a shot you had to make in the air, during an explosion that flew you across the air?"

 

They were still where they had been for the past twenty minutes, Coulson sitting ostensibly relaxed and Clint standing before him like a scolded child. Neither made a move, the lack of actual privacy not bothering Coulson, and it didn’t seem too likely that Clint would be the one walking away, not from a conversation like this. Clint had run from his problems for as long as he recalled, but when actually confronted with the problem he would catapult himself head first straight towards it. Maybe not the most admirable quality in a man, but hey, he was still alive.

 

The archer hesitated with his reply. "Now that you say it like that I know how stupid I must sound to you. For fuck’s sake, there are reasons for why we don’t talk about these things. But you have to understand me in this. There is nothing else in my life than my work and you should know how that feels Mr. I-don’t-sleep-nor-eat."

 

"I am just going to ignore the last part and request you tell me what these things we are not talking about," Coulson offered. Why was Coulson so fucking nice to him? It didn’t make sense. But then again, Coulson was indefinitely smarter than any redneck like Clint could hope to ever be. Maybe it was a smart people thing? Showing compassion, even for trash.

 

"Like, feelings and weaknesses and what goes on in my head. Shrink stuff." They both knew that Coulson had read Clint’s file years ago and Clint could have probably stolen it if he wanted to see it.

 

"Would you like to? Talk about that stuff?"

 

The fact that Coulson looked genuinely like he would follow through if Clint said yes nearly made the blonde to scream. Instead he blurted: "Why aren’t you kicking me out?"

 

"I don’t want to, and I don’t have the authority to do so. You are far too valuable."

 

"Don’t bullshit me. Like you couldn’t do whatever the fuck you wanted with the Avengers, and yeah maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t, but I sure as hell am not worth it now. You’ll realize that eventually."

 

"I can assure you that the case is not so. Besides, even if you were paralyzed from neck down you would still be worth keeping, for the person you are, not for your skills."

 

"You don’t mean that."

 

"That’s up to you to believe or not, but I must say that you really should trust me on this."

 

Coulson walked away and Clint knew that the conversation hadn’t even been opened properly. Clint hated it but like with so many other things in his life he decided to fuck it, roll with it, and not think about it (and if that didn’t work out he knew all the exits).

 

He had a safe house in all continents and three regularly updated identities, he had plans and IOUs to call in. He was going to be fine.


	3. Shoot Or Soothe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING!
> 
> A possibly triggering scene of what is heavily implied non-con. Details in the end notes for those of you who think it might help.

Clint really wanted to talk to Coulson. Too bad he wasn’t sure if Coulson loathed him or not.

 

Clint decided to make a list of things he was sure of.

 

(Yes, it was the very technique that his SHIELD appointed shrink had recommended for him during his first mandatory psych visit, but it also sort of helped sometimes.)

 

_Two out of ten, wouldn’t recommend._

 

Did Clint want to get the fuck out and preferably fly to a different continent? Yes. Was he still ashamed of himself for being a shitty excuse of a superhero? Heck yes. Did he want to avoid speaking with any of his team mates excluding ЧёрнаяВдова? Hell yes. Did he want to leave Phil Coulson without a proper goodbye and never see him again? Hell no _._

 

Even though the man probably never wanted to see him again? Still hell no.

 

Phil had been shipped off to some in the middle of nothing bumfuck place after laying off of Clint’s back at the Tower. It was a classified mission, but Phil wasn’t supposed to be on the field so Clint could contain his desire to ask Stark to hack into SHIELD’s servers, his own pride be damned. He had only opened his mouth to ask three times in the past week. It was a win in his books.

 

When he wasn’t trying to fight off his protective, good-for-nothing instincts he promptly continued what he had been doing since getting out of medical.

 

He trained. He hid. He was afraid. He was anxious.

 

He could see Tasha was displeased with him. He didn’t understand why since he did his best to stay out of the way and avoid trouble, but he didn’t want to think about it.

 

_Probably expected more from me. Like all of them did._

 

What still continued to baffle Clint, was that he hadn’t still been kicked out. If Coulson had been truthful when he said he couldn’t kick any of the Avengers out of the team, there was no reason to wait for him to come back from the mission. Nick Fury or the World Security Council sure as hell had no saying in who were the members (at least not directly but they were manipulative little shits enough to turn them against each other or something equally crazy). That left Captain America, their leader.

 

Truth to be told Clint had been actively avoiding Steve, maybe more than anyone else, but if Cap had really wanted to seek him out he would have done just that. So, it was a mystery as to why he hadn’t.

 

Not that the nightmares left a lot time to think about Cap’s reasoning.

 

Every single one of the people he had killed or hurt both during his career as a mercenary and an agent had come to greet him afterwards. It took anywhere between a day and a month for them to visit his humble abode that most people called a mind. Usually they just stayed in their own respective dreams, but these days everyone was kind of mixed into layers of bad decisions. The little girl he had been forced to kill before he was assigned to Coulson stood beside his own grieving mother and somehow, they looked like a parent and a daughter.

 

Maybe, if he had been a girl Ma would have smiled sometimes. Then again, Pop would have been the same, if not worse. He hated his Pop more than anyone (except maybe himself), even after all these years. Had he been blessed with a daughter he didn’t deserve, Pop would have probably gone Daniel Rinehart on her.

 

_They are all ready to take him down, but they don’t have to. He surrenders easily, molds himself into something he can’t even recognize. It is shaped like a human but it isn’t humane in the slightest. It is a sentient being though and it’s ugly no matter what he does with it. No matter how he tries to get rid of it. However, there are four spots that are always a little less disgusting. The bloodied scratches on top of the proximal phalanx of his right thumb. (He knows the words only because he heard his ex-handler discussing them with the nurse. He had used big words. The ones never used with him. An exception on one person, the one person in the world who believed there was something else in the archer than the capable but mindless body of a fighter.) The callouses he has on the insides of his index, middle, and ring finger._

 

_In the dream he shoots at a practice target, an arrow after arrow. Non-stop. He nocks and draws faster than ever before, which, after the battle of New York, is really fast._

 

_Behind his back he can feel someone approaching but he can’t turn around to see who it is because he must shoot. He hits the bull’s eye every time but he must keep drawing the string until his hands stop shaking and the clogging feeling in his throat settles. It’s disorientating for a reason he can’t think of right then because then his streak would severe and he’d have to aim again and that would take more time and--. He can’t let that happen._

 

_He can feel the coldness emitting from the body behind him but he won’t turn around because he is not allowed. He wants to, though. Wants to see a face or maybe the lack of. It is simply not granted. He doesn’t need to be aware of the threat looming behind him, because being scared never stopped him from shooting._

 

_He stares ahead even when the figure behind him touches him with cold fingers. The hands are on his shoulders but it feels like they are grasping around his heart. Or where his heart should be. Learning about how the heart is actually a bit to your left and not in the middle of your thorax is a vague memory. (Here he goes again with the medical terms.) The lesson probably included firsthand experience._

 

_Unaware if he stays still for it would not help to move, or because he’s a pussy, he tightens his grip on the handle of the bow._

 

_He shoots even when one of the hands lowers itself from his shoulder, down his body. He can feel an old wound coming to life where the other hand stays firmly planted on his shoulder. He knows there are a lot of scars and a lot of marks his life has left on him but that one just may be the most bitter of them all._

 

_To have one’s own mentor almost kill them would certainly give some trust issues to anybody._

 

_The hand that isn’t on his shoulder trails down his abdomen, pokes at the fat there as if to remind of its existence and teases at his waistband, and he doesn’t want it – especially there - for fuck’s sake, but he must shoot so it’s going be okay. It’s okay because it isn’t his fault that he isn’t doing anything to stop the thing when it shoves itself down, this time for real. Or when it goes even deeper and finds the spot it’s been looking for._

 

_It isn’t his fault except how it totally is and now his arm’s getting tired even though it shouldn’t with so few draws. He must really be out of shape. Can’t even do that right._

 

_The hand inside his boxers hovers dangerously where it is, like a hawk. It’s not a part of his cast of hawks, it’s from someone else’s flock and it shouldn’t terrify him so much._

 

_He is getting more and more tired until he finally does it. The one thing he can’t do._

 

_He fucking misses. He misses so completely that the arrow doesn’t even hit the target board, not to mention the middle of it, and when did he set the target that far? When did he set the target at all? He has no time to think about that because the faceless thing behind him loses any composure it has had and shoves himself into him, onto him._

 

_He feels like he chokes on his words. There’s a please, and a no, and a please no (but it doesn’t matter because no one listens to him. No one ever did and no one ever will)._

 

_Around him there are Trick Shot and Barney watching with identical smirks as he lays back and doesn’t even fight against the mass that’s overpowering him as if he’s just dead weight. Nothing to be done. He can’t fight it, and giving up sometimes hurts less.He should know._

 

_Natasha is beside them and she looks disgusted by what she sees. His душка_ _is disgusted by him, like he always knew would happen. There aren’t many things that gross out Natasha Romanova but not standing up for oneself is definitely in the big top three. Then again, he deserves what’s happening so he has no right to complain. Even if he’d rather have his tongue ripped off than witness this again after so long._

 

_He distantly thinks that his head must be getting bad again – he has only a little more of the pills he stole from medical - because suddenly there is the last person he wants seeing this farce of ruining him. Phil Coulson is standing there._

 

_Phil looks at him and even straight into his eyes but yet, does nothing. He doesn’t look revolted. He’s just disappointed, like he actually, somehow, at some point, thought that the archer on the ground was worth something else. Something not quite so painful to go through._

 

_It hurts a lot more, and in more ways than one._

 

_Then the thing defiling its victim must sense that its prey is not completely focused on the pain it is causing, because it changes somehow and makes him scream in agony. He is hurting but the audience likes it. Enjoys it, revels in his despair._

 

_This act he has been through so many times is supposed to hurt for god’s sake, so why does he still wish it didn’t?_

 

_Phil turns his back to him while the others laugh when he writhes and tries to cower from the blows. The touches make him want to choke on his own vomit._

 

 _"Barton_! Wake up!"

 

Clint’s eyes shot wide open but he didn’t even twitch a muscle besides that. There had been too many times after a nightmare when moving hadn’t been a great idea. The need to be absolutely still when he wakes up, even half-petrified to death, has been drilled into him with great enthusiasm.

 

Okay. Assess the situation, Barton. Next to where Clint was laying, Coulson peeked his head up from the hole on the downside of the vent the archer had crawled in. He wasn’t looking angry per se, more like concerned and therefore annoyed that he hadn’t been informed about something.

 

Not too bad. Clint could do bluff.

 

All of a sudden, it hit him. Coulson was there and had seen his god-fuck-damned nest. The one he hadn’t showed to anyone, not even Tasha. The one place no one was supposed to know about, not to mention see it. The one place that clearly gave away all Clint’s needs and wants and wasn’t that a spine-chilling thought.

 

Lastly, because he couldn’t stress it enough,  _his nest._

 

"I’m sorry," the demure sound that slipped past Clint’s teeth was nearly covered by the frantic rustling of sheets as Clint struggled to gather the blankets around him. "I’m sorry," he repeated for good measure.

 

Maybe he could just get the fuck out of there and find a nice boiler alcove to build a new nest in, if Stark even had that kind of things in his modern prime example of a business tower.

 

"I just... I got to you know, like, just, I’ll get out of the w-"

 

"Barton, it is your floor. Why would you need to get out of my way? I came in here unauthorized," and yeah great, now Phil looked more suspicious than anything and people suspecting him never bode well with Clint nor his foreseeable future.

 

"Yeah, about that. Jarvis has standing instructions to allow you and Tash inside always, sorry, I need to just, please let me go okay."

 

"Barton I am not holding you here against your will," Phil had his I-am-soon-going-to-ask-you-something-serious-face on.

 

"No of course not, never thought that. Sorry, Sir. Sir," Clint babbled on, too wound up to do anything but collect his quiver and bow from where they had been resting on the white panels.

 

"Barton."

 

"Yes, Sir?"

 

"Calm down."

 

"In all honesty, I would rather get down, Sir."

 

"Then get down?"

 

The sentence sounded more like a question than anything else, but it still hurt the archer. Too many people telling him to get down, the implied ‘and to work’ went unsaid.

 

_Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid._

 

Coulson removed himself from the hole and Clint dropped gracelessly to his actual quarters, where he was like, supposed to actually live, instead of a small foot times foot space inside an air ventilation shaft.

 

Clint had a motto. It went about ‘when in doubt, find the smallest space possible and barricade yourself there’. Clinton Francis Barton had always been a man to respect the wisdom of proverbs, which was why he bolted to the bathroom as fast as he could.

 

_I don’t miss._

 

_Missing is not an option._

 

_Amazing means one hundred per cent bull’s eye._

 

_I do not miss._

 

Clint had long since overcome the urge to rock himself in situations like these, but the anxiety hadn’t gotten any more sufferable.

 

Sometimes he wanted for somebody. For somebody to be there. For somebody to take away the pain, by soothing or shooting him he did not know. Perhaps he wouldn’t have minded either way. It was hard to think when his head got like this. Then again if one is stupid enough, thinking is always hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clint dreams of failing to hit a practice target. As a result, the man of his nightmares gropes him and forces himself on Clint. Not graphically depicted, only implied heavily. Might be triggering because Clint clearly hates the man but doesn't know who he is since in the dream Clint can't look at the man. The man is described to be slipping his hand inside Clint's boxers and "finding what it's looking for."
> 
> Clint is woken up by Phil who has come to Clint's rooms without permission because he was worried.


	4. All My Eggs In One Basket, It's A Gift For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \-- It came more meek than Clint would’ve dared to admit but eventually he choked out ”I used to get thrown around a lot.” --

When Clint walked out from own his bathroom the following morning, he certainly wasn’t expecting to find Coulson sleeping on his couch. He would have thought that his handler had been worn out by his stubbornness already. The man had never once knocked on the door to demand him to get his act together. Actually, Phil hadn’t in any point told him to man up, or to stop the faking. A surprise in itself.

 

He had softly inquired, respectfully without banging the door, if Clint was going to hurt himself, to which the archer had replied that he was not. That had seemingly been enough for Coulson, who had left his post behind the bathroom door, presumably to give Clint some space. After that, Clint hadn’t had any idea that Coulson had stayed.

 

Watching Coulson sleep on his couch was just bizarre.

 

Of course, Clint had fantasized about his handler being there quite a handful of times. It didn’t make the novelty any lesser when he actually had.

 

Thinking still hurt his brain like it always did for a few days after a full-blown freak out, so he decided not to, and instead went to get himself some coffee, popping a pill like the good little substance abuser trailer trash he was. He had no idea what the pills were for, but he had once heard them being prescribed for freaking out too much. They actually numbed the hollowness a bit. Or hollowed the numbness. Whatever.

 

What they didn’t do was lift up the weight that settled on his chest during a freak out. Nothing he had ever done had helped for that. It would go away in a week or so but leave a bitter taste in its wake.

 

It was scary, how he changed after a freak out. It was like going back to being a child. After his parents’ death he had learned to tough it out for good but before that he had been nothing but a terrified kid. He couldn’t take a beating, couldn’t even bear to know someone was angry with him. He jumped at the tiniest of noises and was constantly wound up in fear of causing a conflict. It was pitiable, and he had let no one see him like that. Not even Душка.

 

Coulson woke while Clint was facing the coffee maker to make the most bitter coffee of his life. It was only Clint’s trust for Coulson and his almost drunk-like state that prevented him from punching Coulson as the man approached quickly.

 

"Want to tell me what’s been going on with you lately?" Coulson tried to sound casual as he dipped down to rest his weight on Clint’s black leather bar stool.

 

It was a tense two or so minutes. Clint was far too gone to care about that.

 

"Nothing." He was aware of the tension in all his muscles and how he subtly lowered himself into a sloppy fighting stance as he turned around to face the older man. Clint hoped to distract Coulson with a dash of respectfulness and natural charm. (A man could hope.)

 

"Don’t lie to your superiors. It’s not respectful." What would have normally passed as a joke coming from Coulson and have Clint grinning, caused the blonde to instinctively flinch away against the sharp edge of the kitchen counter as if electrocuted. Fuck freaking out and fuck whatever was making him lose his inner balance.

 

Clint felt disconnected from his body and he wasn’t sure how to find his way back to it. Wasn’t sure if he wanted. He stared just to the left of Coulson’s eyes, not quite meeting them but close enough that he could not be scolded for refusing to maintain eye contact. A good tactic.

 

A quiet "Sorry, Sir," followed by an even quieter "Won’t happen again," while pressing his back intently against the counter. He wondered whether Phil would order him to stop if he pressed visibly. Then he wondered whether it was too presumptuous to think that Coulson would care enough to use precious seconds of his life to stop Clint from hurting himself. Probably was.

 

 _"_ What? No Clint, I’m not cross with you, why would I be?"

 

Rule number one, don’t tell the people who have the power to hurt you that they have it, lest it might become irresistible even for the better ones. Clint had fucked that one up. The feeling was kind of like he was drowning, just without the survival instinct that came with it. It was hard to force the words out. He had basically accused Coulson of being cruel, but would it be cruel if he deserved to be shouted at? He didn’t even dare to think, because if he did he might sound too eager to be punished or rude. Too eager because he did expect a punishment, but it probably wouldn’t be too much fun for Coulson if Clint had already resigned to his fate. After all, it was probably more entertaining to watch them squirm. Rude, because he didn’t want to be punished but he knew he deserved it. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, as one of the favorite proverbs of his said.

 

 "I didn’t say that you would be."

 

"Clint."

 

The archer’s breath hitched, "You haven’t been yet. Even though I missed." He felt woozy.

 

"So this is about the thing on the last op? Why do you keep going back to it?"

 

"What else could it be?” Panic surged in him. "Have I done something?" His voice was barely coherent to Coulson as he slurred. He should’ve fucking known. He always missed something, and when it was time to pay for the lapses he was equally as surprised every time.

 

_I tried not to be so bad and yeah, didn’t work out. I really thought I didn’t do anything this time._

 

He had thought he was being better by staying away from everyone’s business, but then people thought he didn’t care. Not that he wanted to imply that anyone cared about what Clint did, which would definitely have been too overfamiliar. It was complicated. Why are there so many sides of everything when it would be easier to just accept that no one in the world wanted anything to do with him; though that would imply that Tash was lying to him when she said she cared, which he did not mean at all, and wow what a mess his head was.

 

"No! I mean -- no, you haven’t. I just --," seeing Coulson struggling with words was more unsettling than Clint could have ever imagined. "Clint, half the time I have no idea what you’re going through. I have no ways to help you, I can’t even ask you to talk to me because I am not a therapist and certainly not your therapist. It wouldn’t be professional anyway. I have no idea how to make your life easier because I have no idea what’s going on."

 

"I suppose saying that I am fine won’t make the bar this time?"

 

"That goes without saying."

 

"Yeah, well fuck that."

 

"Clint, you are quick to say that you are ‘fucked up’, but have you ever paused and wondered what part about you it is that makes it so?”

 

"Just about everything there is to me," Clint answered, eyes dangerously vacant.

 

"Obviously, there are a myriad of things you haven’t ever really processed, that keep coming back to haunt you. The answer ‘everything’ is however just a poor coping mechanism that allows you to not analyze your mental health problems at their core.”

 

“When you put it like that.”

 

Clint’s following silence was apparently an answer enough for Coulson who continued, "Why are you so afraid of failure?"

 

Clint tried to laugh but apparently failed because when he said "Well, I am already one myself. Don’t need to go around reminding people of that," he wondered how it was possible to physically hurt to say that. Every word of the conversation was making him choke on his own breath and hyperventilate at the same time.

 

Coulson didn’t look convinced of his mental stability. Clint understood him perfectly.

 

Abruptly Phil thought it best to change the subject, "What do you usually do after a panic attack?"

 

"After a --, what?"

 

"You don’t know what that is?"

 

"Should I? Fancy words don’t cure the shit."

 

"I am fairly sure that the state you were in last night was a panic attack."

 

"Yeah well I don’t know what that means, so."

 

And anyways, it was just so much easier to wait the week it took for him to recover and then pretend nothing ever happened. It was familiar, it was safe and it made people not worry about him. Whatever they said about him through the grape vine, he never ever set out to make people worry about him. Even if the attention conveniently fed his humiliating craving for being recognized.

 

"I will be sending you some reading material about a condition called panic disorder. I really thought the Psych would have given you a list? Occupational hazards and everything considered." It could have passed as a statement said under one’s breath, but Clint recognized the question.

 

"Yeah, well they tried to give me a pamphlet, once. Told them I didn’t need it."

 

"Why on Earth would you? Psych gives those out for a reason, you know,” Phil looked as exasperated as ever. Clint sort of hoped Coulson would never loose that one expression.

 

"‘T wouldn’t have been used."

 

"File form D-15 to complain about unnecessary handouts if you must. In the future, you will read the info sheets you are given from Medical, am I clear?”

 

Clint gave him a look. "Look, Sir, I don’t know what fairy tale bullshit you are going to feed me just now, but in my experience if one goes --, let’s say, a bit nuts. There isn’t anyone there for you anymore. If you know what’s best for you, you’ll pull the damn trigger yourself at that point. That’s just the way things are," he slurred "I should just, I don’t know man up or something. Never was really good at that.”

 

"That’s something you’ve heard all your life, isn’t it? To just man up and be the man they want you to be? The Clint Barton who doesn’t hurt anywhere, ever, who never shows emotion except aggression and who can do anything, and be a  _man?”_

 

A tiny nod.

 

”For the record, I don’t believe in that bullshit.” Hearing the word bullshit pass Coulson’s lips sent not entirely pleasant shivers up Clint’s spine. "I believe that all genders have the same abilities to feel every nuance of the emotional scale if they are given the chance. I believe that all men have the right to be whatever they want to be. I believe that being a man is not a competition that you can be disqualified from based on how many times you have cried in your life.”

 

It came more meek than Clint would’ve dared to admit should he ever recall this disaster of a conversation afterwards, but eventually he choked out ”I used to get thrown around a lot.” As Phil’s silence stretched Clint felt stupid for saying it out loud. Of course Phil knew about eighty per cent of the stuff he had lived with and ‘getting thrown around’ was not in the restricted twenty per cent not even Tasha was aware of.

 

”First and foremost, do you feel like you are a man? Do you feel like being a man is what you want to be?”

 

”I mean, I’ve got the parts so yes. And I know I’m a man, it’s just --”

 

”We will later discuss the unimportance of having the parts to forming a valid gender identity, but right now I’m just saying that being a man is not the synonym of being emotionally detached.”

 

"I should just get up and leave."

 

"Listen, you don’t have to endure it, okay? There are treatments and therapies, medications and coping skills. Nobody’s going to shoot you for having a disorder. Your gender doesn’t mean that you are immune to having or expressing emotions or that a chemical imbalance in your brain wouldn’t be able to affect you.”

 

"Still don’t know what that means, like, actually means. In my head case kind of a case."

 

Why must he be so dumb? Phil was trying to help him, had done so much already and since Clint was just a stupid shit he didn’t even know of a "condition" that he apparently had.

 

"Clint, would you read the fancy info graphics I’m inevitably going to send you?"

 

For a split second, Clint almost worried about the medical terminology he would have to endure through, before remembering that Coulson would probably un-medical it for him. Like with legalese. "Yeah okay, I can do that."

 

"Good, Clint. Now, I know that it’s only six hundred hours and I know you may have dozed off on the bathroom floor but would you like to get some rest on an actual bed? I can make the coffee and get it for you in a thermos for when you wake."

 

"Yeah, sleeping’s good, I guess," and it didn’t involve thinking.

 

As Clint quietly retreated to his bedroom, the last thing he saw was Coulson fussing with the coffee maker, and if he hadn’t been so drained he’d have paid mind to how cute Coulson fumbling was. Soon enough Coulson arrived with the coffee and sat on the one chair in the room, so he was facing Clint who half-sat half-laid on the bed.

 

"Can you tell me what you would like? For comfort of sorts? It’s okay if you can’t."

 

"Is there, like, a handbook for this thing where you, you know, try make me feel better?

 

"No, it’s just whatever would work. Within reason, naturally.”

 

Clint had always been good at putting all his eggs in one basket so he decided to roll with it and asked "Could you stay beside me for a sec? Just like, I’m not feeling the most observant right now and I could use someone watching my back for a bit. The damn assassin in me won’t let me sleep like this. I know that we’re at the Tower and that Jarvis is a thing, a person, an AI, whatever, and also about the various safety plans of Tony’s, but you know how it gets.”

 

"Okay." In typical Coulson-fashion that was it. No arguments, no hits, not even name-calling.

 

Clint went to lie down and saw Coulson settling more comfortably beside him.

 

"Is this normal? Is it okay? It’s not wrong?" Clint just had to ask, even though he suspected that even if it was somehow abnormal for a person to get comfort from this kind of thing, Coulson wouldn’t say a thing about it for his sake.

 

"It is completely normal and okay, and absolutely not wrong. In this line of work one needs people at their back, even just to sleep."

 

"You don’t have to, really. You can do whatever else. I know you don’t want to spend time of your life watching me drool."

 

Coulson paused. "Clint, when it comes to you, I really want to help you anyway I can. I care for you a lot and I want to see you happy."

 

"I am happy." Enough.

 

"Sometimes, you only see how sad you’ve been when you get better."

 

Clint took his aids out, and that seemed to satisfy Coulson in some odd way because the last moment Clint saw him before falling asleep he had the faintest starters of a smile lifting up his permanently bland expression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will continue as I get around writing more.


End file.
